Health Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 3:13 pm on 19 June 2006.

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Photo of Lord Walton of Detchant Lord Walton of Detchant Crossbench 3:13, 19 June 2006

My Lords, many of the arguments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Russell-Johnston, and others are based on the view expressed by a number of noble Lords in Grand Committee that passive smoking carries very little, if any, health risk. When a lawyer says, "With respect", he means, "I do not agree with you"; when he says, "With great respect", he means, "You are talking nonsense"; and when he says, "With the greatest possible respect", he means, "You have gone off your head". With the greatest possible respect to the very distinguished Members of your Lordships' Economic Affairs Select Committee, I find the remarks made in its recently published report quite extraordinary and, indeed, inconceivable.

The evidence that has been accumulated over the past five years has become increasingly powerful in demonstrating the devastating effect that passive smoking may have on the health of those exposed to it. Second-hand smoke is now classified as a class A substance—a known human carcinogen—by the US Environmental Protection Agency. Other class A carcinogens include asbestos, arsenic, benzene and radon. About 50 international studies of second-hand smoke and lung cancer risk in people who have never smoked have been published over the past 25 years. Most recently, in 2004, the World Health Organisation's International Agency for Research on Cancer reviewed the literature and concluded that second-hand smoke is cancer causing and that non-smokers living with smokers increase their lung cancer risk by approximately 20 per cent for women and 30 per cent for men. For non-smokers exposed in the workplace, the risk of lung cancer is increased by 16 to 19 per cent. The Government's own advisory committee on the effects of smoking, the Scientific Committee on Tobacco and Health, concluded that there is an increased risk of lung cancer for non-smokers of about 24 per cent.

In Grand Committee, a noble Lord referred to the fact that Sir Richard Doll was quoted some time ago as saying that active smoking was harmful, but that second-hand smoke did not worry him. He said that as a throwaway remark when being interviewed on Radio 4's "Desert Island Discs" in February 2001. I knew Richard Doll very well and, some years ago, I had the privilege of succeeding him as warden of Green College, Oxford. In February 2005, just a month or two before he died, he wrote:

"We first established the causal link between smoking and lung cancer in 1950, but the tobacco industry spent decades arguing that our results did not justify our conclusion . . . Now tobacco companies are using the same technique to undermine the conclusion that passive smoking causes fatal disease. The evidence that it does is clear", and incontrovertible. He continued:

"As a responsible citizen, I believe that nobody should have to work in an atmosphere polluted by other people's smoke".

The evidence to the effect that to create smoking and non-smoking areas in places where food is served may overcome that risk is not at all convincing. All the medical bodies that I have consulted, and a huge number of public bodies acting on behalf of the communities in which they live, have come to the conclusion that that will not be an effective solution to the problem and that the only way in which the public at large and the workers in the catering and public house industries can be protected is by banning smoking entirely in those enclosed spaces. For that reason, I certainly could not support the amendment, particularly as recent public surveys have, in response to questionnaire exercises, indicated that across the country, and particularly in my native north-east of England, where the problem is very serious, more than 70 per cent of the public at large wish to see this ban imposed, as in the Bill that stands before us for consideration.